Harry Reid: “there have been a lot of rumors around here in the Senate--and I hope this is just a rumor--but I have heard that the…”

“there have been a lot of rumors around here in the Senate--and I hope this is just a rumor--but I have heard that the Senate minority, the Senate Republicans, are threatening to shut down the Senate on Thursday or some time this week. The reason given is that the President, this past Friday, talked about there being 11 vacancies in the circuit courts. Now, that is interesting. I have spoken on the Senate floor for long periods of time, in effect, defending the Judiciary Committee because these same vacancies they cry about are vacancies they created. They would not fill the vacancies during the 8 years President Clinton was in office, and now they are complaining because there are vacancies. As we have spoken about on a number of occasions, Chairman Leahy has done his very best to move these along. In the Senate, we have been led by Senator Daschle, as majority leader, and the various Democratic chairmen for less than a year. During that period of time, we have had one Senate office building closed for months, we have had September 11, and lots of problems. But in spite of that, we have approved 52 judges already. But if they do decide they want to interrupt this very busy schedule, I think they will reveal just how out of touch they are with the American people.”